A continuing development in television systems and technologies and a cross over with other forms of delivering television programmes has meant an increasing level of complexity and development of television receivers and apparatus for receiving and displaying audio/video data representing television programmes. Modern televisions are typically provided with an interface for displaying television programmes which are available for a user to select from various television channels which the television can receive with respect to time. Such an interface is typically referred to as an Electronic Programme Guide (EPG). Accordingly a user can browse through an EPG to view available programmes and using for example a remote control can select a desired programme for display on the television. An apparatus for receiving data representing a schedule of television programmes for generating the EPG may therefore exist within the television itself, or may exist within a set top box. The television or the set top box may be connected to a source for receiving the television signals such as a television antenna for detecting terrestrial signals carrying the television programmes, for example with DVB-T or DVB-T2 or a cable connection for receiving television programmes from DVB-C or DVB-C2 or a satellite dish for DVB-S or DVB-S2. Alternatively, television programmes can be delivered by mobile network broadcasts or via an internet such as for example internet protocol (IP) television.
In European Patent Application EP2252051A1 there is disclosed a method of content retrieval using an electronic programme guide (EPG) by selecting a content item out of a set of contents items and using the item as a seed to execute a recursive or iterative process until one of the content items of the set is determined by the user as a content item for consuming. The content item is displayed with respect to a sub set of the seed items at a display in connection with a television apparatus and each of the content items of the respective sub set is represented by a respective image so that a user may select a content item from the sub set for display.
US Patent Application US2010/0260475 discloses a television recording apparatus which includes a recording unit for recording television signals and stores meta data representing information in respect of the recording including a channel and the recording time. The graphical display of the recordings is displayed in accordance with a schedule of recordings in which graphical objects representing the respective recordings are arranged in two dimensions. An EPG is therefore produced with a format corresponding to the recorded items and programmes can be filtered to display programmes at certain times in the EPG.
US Patent Application 2007/0168539 discloses a television recording and processing apparatus which is arranged to generate an EPG of television programmes which are to be broadcast on a plurality of broadcast channels. The apparatus is further configured to monitor a status of availability of a multi-media asset which is available from a delivery system such as streaming from a server. If the status of availability of the multi-media asset should change, because the multi-media asset will become unavailable then the apparatus responds to the change of status by accessing the multimedia asset and recording the multimedia asset locally on the recording apparatus.
The development of the internet for accessing television content has meant that in recent years even if a television programme has already been transmitted on a broadcast channel, a user can select the television programme for display by accessing a server which can stream the television programme in the form of audio/video data transported in data packets using an internet protocol from the server. A receiver of the data packets can recover the audio/video data and regenerate the television programmes for display on a television. Thus, as well as conventional broadcast channels which broadcast television programmes at particular times, a user can have the option of selecting a television programme which has been broadcast by accessing a server via the internet to receive that television programme. Accordingly there have been developed EPGs which include an indication that a television programme which has already been broadcast may still be accessed by streaming the television programme via the internet. Such an EPG may be referred to as a “reverse” EPG because the user can scroll backwards in time to review times or days which are backwards in time which display a schedule of television programmes which have been broadcast but include an indication that these can be accessed by streaming over the internet. By displaying such an indication the user can select a television programme from a set top box which may include an arrangement for automatically accessing the television programme from a server so as to stream the audio/video data to the television or set top box for display.
Providing a more convenient way of delivering television content to a user which utilises an EPG and which improves a user experience continues to be desirable.